


Bird in the Hand

by SophiaHawkins



Category: Mom (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:21:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29001375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiaHawkins/pseuds/SophiaHawkins
Summary: "Mom?" Christy called out, "I need to talk to you." "What is it?" Bonnie asked. "I...did something I wasn't supposed to," Christy answered. Christy relapses on her gambling addiction, but something good seems to come out of it.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Bird in the Hand

Bird in the Hand

Christy zombie walked into their apartment looking at something in her hand, calling out distantly, "Mom? Mom? _Mom_?"

"What?" came a muffled response from upstairs.

Christy looked towards the ceiling and bellowed, "I need to talk to you!"

"Hang on!" Bonnie called down.

"It's important!" Christy called up, blinking in disbelief.

Bonnie came not quite running down the stairs and asked, "What's going on?"

Christy looked at her with a mild expression of terror and panic on it. "I...did something I wasn't supposed to."

"You drank?"

"No," Christy quickly answered.

"You got another married boss to sleep with?" Bonnie asked.

"No."

Bonnie pursed her lips under her nose as she thought. "You run over a hitchhiker?"

"No! Mom!"

"Uh...oh God, don't tell me you and Baxter are getting back together."

" _No_! Mom!" Christy replied in an annoyed tone.

"Well I'm running out of guesses, you got fired?"

"No, nothing like that."

"Are you pregnant?" Bonnie asked.

Christy's eyes bugged out, "Why would you ask that?"

"I don't like this game," Bonnie said. "What did you do?"

"I'll tell you...just, promise you won't get mad."

"Oh God," Bonnie looked towards the ceiling, then back at Christy, " _what_ did you do?"

" _Promise_ ," Christy replied.

"Yeah yeah yeah, I promise, now spill," Bonnie said.

Christy bit her lower lip and answered, "I got paid today...and I stopped at a gas station on the way home from work."

"Hey, don't go all Wendy on me, just get to the bad part," Bonnie told her.

"I...I was going to buy a pack of cigarettes...I hadn't planned to but I looked behind the cashier and the Marlboros were practically _looking_ at me just egging me on, going 'buy me, buy me'."

"You started smoking again?" Bonnie asked in disbelief, "That does it, you're sleeping in the laundry room. I'm not putting up with your hacking and wheezing all night."

"I don't wheeze," Christy replied defensively.

"Oh please, you sound like a mouse with asthma," Bonnie said.

"Mom! I didn't get them," Christy jumped to the point.

Bonnie was quiet for a few seconds as she took this in, finally replying, "Okay...good, I'm proud of you."

Christy squeezed her eyes shut and grimaced as she blurted out, "I spent the money on lottery tickets."

"You did _what_?" Bonnie yelled. "Christy, your gambling got us evicted from our home, you lost the only diamond earrings you're ever going to have-"

"I know!" Christy said as she stepped back as Bonnie advanced towards her.

"You had to take double shifts for a year to pay Jill back for the money you lost at the casino when I got arrested," Bonnie continued.

"I know!" Christy repeated as she took another step back.

Bonnie kept coming towards her, "How could you do something this irresponsible and stupid?"

"I won," Christy said in a tiny voice.

Bonnie squinted one eye and cocked her head to the side, "What? What'd you say?"

Christy opened her eyes wide and looked at Bonnie and nodded shakily, "I won..."

"What? What do you mean?" Bonnie asked.

"I got some scratchers and was doing them in the car...and I won," Christy told her. "I checked the numbers five times to make sure, they matched."

"Oh-kay," Bonnie said slowly, "so what does this mean? What did you get?"

Christy looked at her for a minute without a word, then finally she blurted out, "THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS!"

Bonnie's eyes widened and her jaw dropped as she and Christy screamed and grabbed each other and jumped up and down.

"Let me see it!" Bonnie grabbed for the ticket in Christy's hand as they stopped jumping.

"Don't even think about trying to duplicate it," Christy warned her.

Bonnie let go of the ticket.

Christy was shaking as she looked at it again, "Oh my God, Mom, do you know what this means?"

"Yeah," Bonnie answered smugly, "Mama's getting some new thongs."

Christy squeezed her eyes shut at that thought. Then she looked at her mom and said, "This is an answer to a prayer, we'll have money for groceries, for gas, for clothes-"

"Movies, spas, our own lunch at the bistro when we don't want to listen to Wendy whining...oooh, I'm in the mood for a rib eye steak," Bonnie said.

"Ice cream!" Christy squealed with joy.

They grabbed each other and started jumping again as Bonnie told her, "Finally, things are starting to come our way!"

* * *

1 month later-

Christy sat at the foot of the stairs with a long frown on her face and her hands balled up against her cheeks.

Bonnie came in the door huffing and puffing and kicked it shut behind her as she told Christy, "I had to chase that ice cream truck three blocks before that idiot stopped...I got me a creamsicle and you a sundae crunch bar."

Christy pursed her lips tighter together and moped, "Don't want it."

"Okay, fine, more for me," Bonnie tore at the wrapper.

"No...just put it in the freezer and I'll get it later," Christy closed her eyes and ran her hand up her forehead and over her hair.

"A 'thank you' would be nice," Bonnie commented as she headed into the kitchen, "It's 90 degrees out and I had to hurdle over three hedges to catch up with a pimple faced Mr. Good Humor who started crying when I yelled at him for giving me a fudge-sicle."

Christy groaned, "I feel like the biggest idiot who ever lived."

From the kitchen Bonnie's voice called back, "Pretty sure your ex-husband still holds that crown."

Christy sighed as she finally stood up and walked into the kitchen, "I'm sorry, Mom. I got our hopes up for nothing."

Bonnie shrugged nonchalantly, "Eh, so you win $30,000 and the state takes it all to pay off everyone you owe money to, it happens."

"$22,800," Christy painfully replied, "We would've had $22,800 after the federal tax was taken out, and it's all gone."

"Hey, we've been poor before, we'll survive," Bonnie said, "we've mastered the art of being poor."

"I know and I hate it!" Christy said. She looked at Bonnie and asked in disbelief, "How come you're not as pissed off about this as I am?"

"Because I am choosing to channel my inner Marjorie and look at the silver lining to this big ass storm cloud," Bonnie told her.

Christy did a double take and asked, "Did you eat Adam's pot cookies again?"

"No," Bonnie answered. "Think about it this way...how many people can say they got out of $20,000 worth of debt just by spending $10?"

Christy paused for a moment and her eyes widened. "I hadn't thought about it like that."

"No more monthly payments," Bonnie pointed out. "Now when you get your check, you can actually keep it."

"You mean...we're finally gonna have _more_ money each month?" Christy asked.

"Not for long," Bonnie said, "but yes, for the first time ever, we don't owe anybody money."

"You mean-"

"Yep," Bonnie said excitedly, "We're still poor, but now we're gonna be poor and _out of debt_!"

Christy yelped as they hugged and jumped up and down. In the midst of the jumping, Christy said, "It doesn't feel as good as winning the money did."

"I know," Bonnie said in a euphoric voice as she kept jumping while Christy started to sag against her, "but we'll take it!"

Christy gained a second wind of glee and started jumping again as she realized, "My credit cards are finally paid off! I never thought this would happen."

"See? Every time a door closes, you find a window to jimmy open," Bonnie said as they stopped jumping.

"I'm pretty sure that's _not_ the expression," Christy said.

"Well it's what I do," Bonnie replied.

Sarcastically Christy cheered, "Hooray, we're out of debt and now we're just flat broke."

"Not entirely," Bonnie said. "Fortunately for us, I had the presence of mind to raid all the empties from the building's trash all month."

Christy gave her a puzzled look and asked, "How much did you get from that?"

"Well, we got enough to either get a pizza, or go to the half-off afternoon matinee at the theater," Bonnie answered.

Christy got a wide eyed look as she asked in a hopeful but tiny voice, "Can I get one of those big sodas?"

"Sure," Bonnie nodded, "I'll tell them you're my 10 year old daughter who just had a growth spurt, that should balance out the cost."

"Hooray, we're poor," Christy repeated. "Oh...by the way...I got another first day pin from Gamblers Anonymous."

"Starting a little collection of those, aren't you?" Bonnie asked.

"Yeah," Christy grunted, then added, "but you know what? This one doesn't sting near as much as the others. Relapsing isn't as bad when you actually win...I mean it _is_ bad, but it doesn't feel as bad when you actually get money and you can get your crap paid off and have something to actually show for it."

"Yeah, and _not_ that I would ever encourage you to do it again," Bonnie said, "But if you ever _do_..."

"What?" Christy asked.

"Play the ones with a million dollar prize, even after taxes we'd have to have _something_ left from that one," Bonnie told her.

* * *

Christy had just gotten home from work and was in the middle of taking her shoes off and massaging her feet when the front door opened and Bonnie stepped in carrying several bags and calling, "Christy?"

"Right here, what's all that?" she asked.

Bonnie looked slightly shaken as she set the bags on the coffee table and said, "You know that Mrs. Babbish up on the 5th floor?"

"Yeah?" Christy answered uncertainly.

"She asked me to go to the store for her to get some groceries, and when I got back she'd died."

Christy's jaw dropped and her eyes bulged. "Oh Mom, that's horrible, what happened?"

"What do you mean what happened? She was 5 feet tall, 400 pounds, 58 years old and smoked like a chimney," Bonnie said. "By the way, it better not rain this week because I'm leaving every window in that apartment wide open to air it out for the new tenant." She sat down and explained, "It took the paramedics a couple hours from start to finish to wheel her down to the hearse, everybody just left right before you got home."

"Oh my God, Mom, I'm so sorry you had to go through that," Christy said. Then she noticed the bags and asked hesitantly, "But...what's all that?"

"Well before I called 911 it occurred to me, she can't take her groceries with her, and she had me pick up some nice stuff."

Christy rolled her eyes, "Oh God, Mom, you robbed a dead woman's apartment?"

"It's not robbing, she has no family to come claim her things, life goes on so somebody else should enjoy her food...and some DVDs from her extensive movie selection."

Christy rolled her neck and said cynically, "Mom, you're a ghoul."

"Go ahead and make jokes, but tonight we can have shrimp scampi and crab cakes, and then we can pick between watching "Clue", "The Addams Family", or "Camp Nowhere"...whatever the hell that is."

"I saw it once," Christy said, "It's about these kids who trick their parents into giving them thousands of dollars to send them to a summer camp that doesn't exist."

"That is so _brilliant_ ," Bonnie's eyes lit up.

"You'd never pull it off," Christy told her.

"Well get this, not only do we get free dinner and a movie courtesy of Mrs. Babbish," Bonnie said, "but she gave me a hundred dollar bill for the groceries so we have $50 left in change."

Christy's eyes widened as she cocked her head to the side, "Seriously?"

"Yep, it pays to have shut-in tenants with no family," Bonnie replied.

Christy looked excited by this news but maintained a straight face as she said, "This is just wrong."

"Why? It's perfect, all her stuff would just go into storage, all the food would go to waste," Bonnie pointed out. "This way somebody who needs it can enjoy it."

Christy paused to consider that argument and concluded, "God bless Mrs. Babbish." She looked at the bags and asked, "So what all did we get?"

"Ooh, I know," Bonnie took out a carton of peach frozen yogurt and a bag of candy and said, "Let's mix some gummy bears in with the frozen yogurt."

"Seriously?" Christy asked.

"Yeah, you know dead people tweak my sweet tooth," Bonnie answered.

"And apparently the bigger they are, the more they tweak," Christy commented under her breath. She sighed and said, "Well, it's not as good as $30,000 would've been...but we'll take this as a win."

"Oh yeah," Bonnie said as she started unpacking the groceries, "Check this out, shrimp, crab cakes, Twinkies, potato chips-"

"Ooh! Those would go great with ice cream!"

"Watch it, cat-lap," Bonnie chided, "remember that little 18 pound escapade?" She segued back to pointing out the groceries, "Frozen pizzas, frozen waffles, bacon-"

"Mom," Christy thought of something, "There's a lot more than $50 worth of groceries here."

"I know," Bonnie replied nonchalantly.

Christy blinked. "You stole from a dead woman's freezer?"

"Like I said, she can't take it with her, and it would just go to waste," Bonnie said, "You want syrup glazed bacon for breakfast tomorrow or not?"

Christy paused and pursed her lips together contemplatively and asked, "There's syrup?"

"Next bag, along with a 3 pound bag of Froot Loops."

Christy's eyes lit up, "I love Mrs. Babbish."

"Enjoy it while it lasts, kiddo, because this is as close as we're ever gonna get to a long lost relative leaving us their entire fortune," Bonnie said as she cracked open the frozen yogurt.

"I'll take it," Christy replied.

"Yeah, see?" Bonnie said, "One door closed, and we got a big fat pry bar to a window. You get paid in a week, we won't need it for groceries, we _have_ an extra $50 to get through the week."

"What're we gonna do with it?" Christy asked.

"I'm still getting some new thongs," Bonnie said determinedly.

Christy looked to the side and grimaced, "Ugh, I just lost my appetite."

"Fine, I'll have your share too," Bonnie told her.

"No," Christy grabbed the container as Bonnie tried to pull it over to the other side of the coffee table, "I can power through that...image, for peach yogurt and gummy bears."

"Oh, and check this out, she had a stack of perfectly good throw away bowls and plastic utensils, apparently she did the dishes as much as she exercised," Bonnie took paper and Styrofoam dishes out of another bag and fished out a half empty bag of plastic spoons to start dishing up the frozen yogurt.

Christy got her bowl, took a bite, savored the taste of frozen peach and gummy candy, and concluded, "You know, Mom...being poor sucks...but we still manage to have a pretty good time doing it...and...I'd rather go through it with you than anyone else."

"Know what?" Bonnie asked over a mouthful of frozen yogurt, "I'll second that motion." She clinked her spoon against Christy's, "Cheers."

"Cheers."


End file.
